Interesting confusion. My Chinese and Japanese dictionaries and the WenLin software agree on 16 strokes. The left part is 9 all right, but the second stroke of the right part is down-right-down. I suppose this is where the count differs.

I have seen only one reference before for 17, in the scholarly and interesting Yip Po-Ching: The Chinese Lexicon.

And the four dragons, meaning 'garrulous', should generate a noise level matching any human. The word is tà in Chinese and TETSU in Japanese.

Here's another case of interpretating a Chinese character (it will be intersting to see if the character turn out as intended:
Three women, 姦, mean 'illicit sexual relations'. Often you'll see this meaning explained as "women are, by nature, prone to such relations". I rather like the alternative "a man who has simultaneous relations with three women is reprehensible". Please note that I in this statement don't comment on any previous behavior of mine.

1. Yes. My name is Riu.ta.ro. Riu is what you already know. Taro part means that I am the eldest boy child of my parents.

2. Yes. They are, as anders commented earlier, respectively KAN and TETSU in Japanese. 女 * 3 looks more like 姦. Actually, I have never seen a text that has TETSU on, excepting those that mention it as one of the funniest kanjis (either 64 or 68 strokes, it is the kanji with most strokes).

1. Yes. My name is Riu.ta.ro. Riu is what you already know. Taro part means that I am the eldest boy child of my parents.

2. Yes. They are, as anders commented earlier, respectively KAN and TETSU in Japanese. 女 * 3 looks more like 姦. Actually, I have never seen a text that has TETSU on, excepting those that mention it as one of the funniest kanjis (either 64 or 68 strokes, it is the kanji with most strokes).

In a preview, all that code should render as the character if the font/browser/website can cope with it.

It seems that the IPA block doesn't work on this website yet (which is very sad). However, if you want a pharyngeal fricative /ħ/, you'll find its number on the Unicode chart is 295, and then you can type &#295; to add it to a post.

Flaminius wrote:<---- Being a real dragon to boot can be like this. As I have said, "[d]ragons are a bit meaker than you think they are."

Yes, I know there are differences between the serpent-like chthonic cave-dweller of Europe and the Oriental symbol of auspicious power.

Then of course there are my personal favorites, the dragons of the planet Pern, as created by Anne McCaffrey, who ". . . has been named to the select group of authors designated as SFWA Grand Masters. She is only the twenty-second writer so honored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America since 1974."

Last edited by Stargzer on Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee